Common types of medical malpractice in Georgia

Medical malpractice happens when a patient is hurt or killed because a healthcare provider made a mistake that should have been prevented. Every year, thousands of people are injured by negligent doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals.

Below are some common categories of medical malpractice and examples of how patients can be injured by a medical mistake.

Misdiagnosis

Misdiagnosis can happen in several different ways. Imagine if a medical professional makes a mistake diagnosing a heart attack, stroke, cancer, brain injury, fracture, or other injury or disease in one of the following ways. The results could be deadly.

• Failure to diagnose a condition – the disease or illness was missed completely and should have been caught by the doctor.
• Incorrect diagnosis of a condition – happens when a patient is diagnosed with the wrong condition, leading to unnecessary and perhaps harmful treatments and leaving the real disease or illness untreated.
• Delayed diagnosis – failing to diagnose a serious illness or disease in a timely manner, leading to complications for the patient.

Emergency Room Mistakes

Emergency rooms are busy, chaotic places where doctors, nurses, EMTs, paramedics and other healthcare workers all try to care for seriously injured or sick patients. Despite the chaos, hospitals have a duty to ensure that ERs are properly staffed, staff are properly trained, and that the appropriate procedures are used on every patient.

Examples of emergency room malpractice include delayed treatment or diagnosis of a serious condition, failure to evaluate or treat a patient in a timely manner, failure to monitor a patient, medication error, surgical error, lab error, contaminated blood transfusions, and more.

Surgical Errors

No surgeon is perfect and surgical errors will happen, especially with high-risk or novel surgeries. However, some types of surgical errors are preventable and can result in serious problems for a patient including disability, paralysis, illness, or death.

Surgical errors include anesthesia error, “wrong site surgery” where a surgeon operates on the wrong part of the body, surgical tools (like sponges) left inside a patient, or the use of improperly sterilized surgical equipment.

Help for victims of medical mistakes

The examples above are just a sampling of what can go wrong in a healthcare setting. If you have questions about a possible healthcare mistake in Georgia that you or someone you know experienced, please contact the experienced medical malpractice lawyers at Kaufman Law. Our Atlanta based attorneys can answer your questions and help you determine if you have a case.

Kaufman Law, P.C.

12 Beck Street, N.W.

Atlanta, GA. 30318

Toll Free: (888) 973-2540

Phone: (404) 355-4000